CUPE dollars: Civic workers’ union finances revealed

Hear Vision here: more from Local 1004's infamous pre-election meeting

CUPE Local 1004 held its monthly meeting April 14 at the Maritime Labour Centre, where members were given the latest financial results. A copy of the report and the meeting’s agenda were leaked to me. Read them below.

The document shows Vancouver’s civic outside workers’ union budgeted $2.28 million for expenses and $2.33 million income for 2015. It already spent $69,706 on arbitration and grievances for the first quarter of 2015, just shy of its entire $70,000 arbitration and grievances budget for the year. Under “Salaries – President” it budgeted $84,000. The president is Andrew Ledger of Portland Hotel Society. The meeting’s agenda shows members were expected to appoint CUPE lawyer Hasan Alam as the local’s new business agent.

The April 14 meeting was held, coincidentally, six months to the day since the meeting that defined aspects of the 2014 civic election campaign.

I was tipped-off that Vision Vancouver politicians would be appearing at Local 1004’s Oct. 14 meeting to seek votes, volunteers and donations. As I staked out the door, hoping to take photos and ambush the politicians, I began to receive a series of three unsolicited audio files via email from a source.

Now you can hear the entirety of the three raw files, in sequence. You may have to adjust the volume. Nothing was done to improve the sound quality by the source or me.

(Note: Political speeches, including Gayle Gavin of COPE, Meggs, Niki Sharma, Trevor Loke and Raymond Louie of Vision, and Public Education Project’s Gwen Giesbrecht and Jane Bouey, run from 5:07 to 20:00. Voices of Local 1004 political action committee members Frank Lee and Kyla Epstein can be heard between 1:09:45 and 1:18:27.)